Get Down to Basics

Welcome back to the Guardian column, our weekly peek into development behind the new Thunderstone Advance. I’m Jeff Quick, project lead for Thunderstone.

This week’s Guardian column is about the new basic deck. The basic deck is the starting deck of 12 cards that each player gets at the beginning of the game. In the current game, the basic deck is 6 Militia, 2 Torch, 2 Dagger, and 2 Iron Rations.

Only one of these cards made it into the new basic deck of Thunderstone Advance.

Militia, Amirite?

Can’t live with ’em, can’t destroy ’em through strategic use of the rest action.

Wait, you can actually totally do that second one. But it’s not all that fun. So we took a bold step and scrapped Militia. They’re gone in Thunderstone Advance.

We replaced them all with a new guy we like to call the Regular. Lots of things to like about the Regular.

First, look in the lower left corner of the Regular here. It costs only 2 XP to level him up into any level 1 hero instead of 3 XP. That’s a huge difference in play! It means you’re more likely to train up a Regular than just look for opportunities to ditch him. He’s also a little bit stronger than Militia, which means he’s more likely to pick up a weapon.

Speaking of weapons, take a look at the all new art by Erich Schreiner. It’s meaningful that the regular is holding a spear. Check out that Dungeon ability — evey time he gets a polearm in his grubby mitts, you get card draw.

So you have to make sure that polearms get dealt into the village setup, right?

Stick a Fork in Daggers

No, because we replaced daggers with the longspears in your basic deck.

Longspear does a lot of the same kinds of things that Dagger used to do, but the card interacts with regulars much more meaningfully than daggers and militia ever did. These two combined mean you might be able to go to the dungeon in the early game. Maybe even on the first turn, if the conditions are right.

Thunderstone Shards

Another reason to hit the dungeon early is your Thunderstone shards. These bits of shattered Thunderstone traveled with you into the new world of Tala, and even fragmented, they’re still pretty powerful.

In your basic deck, Thunderstone shards replace iron rations. The three-card combo that made Iron Rations valuable just didn’t come up often enough to be satisfying. So we’ve put iron rations (and food in general) on the back burner, so to speak. Don’t worry, food will be back.

In the meantime, Thunderstone shards give you Strength. But the Spoils ability also gives you extra XP when you defeat a monster. And, look in the lower right corner… they also provide VP just like Thunderstones of old.

Still Carrying a Torch?

We did keep light around, because it’s dark down there in the dungeon.

Your old pal, Torch, is the last member of the basic deck, and the only card that survived more or less intact. But we’ve done some tricks with light and shadow as well, that we’ll talk about in a future Guardian installment. Check back next week!